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Resetting Sales Performance with AI | Wesleyne Whittaker, Transformed Sales | The Brainiac Blueprint

  • Acy Rodriguez
  • Mar 29
  • 32 min read

In this episode of The Brainiac Blueprint Podcast, Kyle Lambert sits down with Wesleyne Whittaker, Founder & Chief Transformation Officer of Transformed Sales, to break down what actually drives sustainable revenue growth - especially in complex, long-cycle sales environments.


Wesleyne shares her journey from chemist → international sales leader → fractional CRO, and introduces her powerful BELIEF selling framework, designed to help sales teams reset their mindset, sharpen their execution, and stay consistent month after month.


She also explains how she thinks about AI in sales training - and why the inputs matter more than ever.


Full transcript below.


🎧 Watch or listen to The Brainiac Blueprint Podcast:Spotify: https://bit.ly/49A4kiq

Apple Connect: https://bit.ly/3VMNtlH


⏱ In this episode, we discuss: 

03:41 | “I think AI is…”

01:05 | Wesleyne’s background

02:18 | What Transform Sales does + who they help

05:05 | Scientific approach to sales

09:35 | The mindset shift that pushed her to bet on herself

11:13 | Starting the business → COVID hits

12:23 | Book release: The Sales Reset

13:18 | BELIEF selling framework introduced

14:50 | Why “Break Barriers” is the most important step

19:12 | How to identify avoidance + mental blocks

24:38 | How she uses AI in sales enablement + training

25:53 | “Humanizing AI” so it matches your voice/tone

46:00 | Rapid Fire

50:30 | Closing + where to find Wesleyne / Transform Sales


🔗 Wesleyne Whittaker


🔗 Transformed Sales:


📲 Connect with Left Brain AI


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Let’s help more people stay brilliant.


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Episode Full Transcript:


Kyle: All right, welcome back everybody to another episode of The Brainiac Blueprint where we discuss the intersection of AI and how it impacts business and the world around us with our esteemed guests.


I'm Kyle Lambert, founder of LeftBrain AI and Action Hero Marketing. In today's episode, we're going to discuss how sales professionals can transform their success with the right systems.


With that being said, today's Brainiac is Wesleyne Whittaker. Welcome to the show, Wesleyne.


Wesleyne: Hi, Kyle. Thanks for having me.


Kyle: Of course, of course. We connected a while ago. I've been looking forward to this conversation. I think salespeople are always so interesting, how they're just so great at kind of understanding the pitch and the person. So I'm ready to dive in here.


You are the Founder and Chief Transformation Officer at Transformed Sales, your own organization. If you can just tell us a little bit about you and the business.


Wesleyne: Yes. So I am a recovering chemist, so talk about Brainiacs. I started my career in the petrochemical industry and I quickly fell in love with sales. Because of my love for sales, I made a really quick ascent from individual contributor to international sales manager.


And as an international sales manager, I noticed the gap that was evident in the process, the training, the tools that salespeople and sales leadership really needed to succeed. So about seven years ago, I started my company and we do a mix of things, but the easiest way to really describe us is we operate as an outsourced or fractional Chief Revenue Officer.


So we are looking at the process, the people. We're looking at sales, marketing, customer success integration and we're creating the strategy for that overarching revenue operations portion and we're making sure that they have the tools, they have the right people in place and we train them on how to execute.


Kyle: Very cool. Do you have a target audience or industry or anything that you specialize in, or is it just anybody that is looking to ramp up their sales?


Wesleyne: Yeah, so we typically specialize in long sales cycle, complex sales. So it doesn't matter if you are selling a service that takes six months to close it, like if you're an accounting firm or a law firm or something like that, or if you're in the manufacturing industry and you're selling multi-million dollar pieces of equipment. But we really specialize in organizations that have a longer sales cycle.


Kyle: Makes perfect sense. Do you find that you have the greatest impact for startup type of industries, or is it more mature and they've kind of plateaued and looking to hit that next level, or do you tailor it to everybody regardless of wherever they may be in their growth stage?


Wesleyne: Yeah, so it kind of just depends because we have really two core offerings. So we work with larger enterprise companies and we also work with the smaller organizations. And so with smaller organizations, what we're doing is we are their first kind of sales strategy, revenue operations. We're the first ones in and we get to lay the groundwork and foundation. With larger organizations, they have some sort of strategy. They've been doing something, but they haven't really been executing it well. So we're in there picking up the pieces and making everything kind of work together.


Kyle: Very cool. Very cool. Makes perfect sense. Oh, here comes my cat. She always comes to say hi. We got a tail coming through.


Well, awesome. So as I mentioned when we first connected, I like to always get everybody's perspective on AI, what they think about it, how they're using it. So if you don't mind, just let everybody know, finish the prompt: I think AI is...


Wesleyne: I think AI is useful when it's used in the right way.


Kyle: Fair enough. Fair enough. It's right in line with what I'm saying or what I like to say. It's a, you know, it's a tool, can be used for good or for bad. It can be, you know, cause more issues or more damage than good, but of course it can accelerate things as well.


So whenever it's a tool that's being used by humans, you can kind of go all over the place with it, right?


Wesleyne: Yeah. I think that what I found, especially over the past year, is that the better the inputs, the better the output. And I think a lot of people are putting garbage in. So we're getting garbage out. And the people that are putting garbage in, they're making it bad for everyone who is using AI responsibly in the right way and they're actually making sure that they use the right prompts. They're giving it the right information.


Kyle: Couldn't agree more. I couldn't agree more.


Well, let's dive in a little bit more. Like I said, you've got a lot of great sales knowledge and expertise that I want to share with everybody. But first, I love that you describe yourself as a recovering chemist. I'm curious if you find that your background in science has helped you to kind of shape how you think about sales or how you approach your systems today.


Wesleyne: Yeah, I actually had a very real example of this recently. I was working with a client and they were like, "Okay, I want to change this, this, this, and this." And I said, "We can only change one variable at a time because that's a good scientific process," right?


We can only do one thing at a time. And so I really think having this science background, the way that it's helped me is I think about process. I think about this and this should equal this, or let's experiment. We're not going to do one thing for 10 months and not see any change, but we're going to do some experimentation.


So I like to say my scientist's brain is really what has grown my company and helps me have this strategy that we can execute on and really pivot very quickly.


Kyle: So how do you handle, I mean, you ended that interesting that you want to pivot quickly. How do you handle these people that come to you and are like, "Hey, we've got aggressive goals, but we need to make a lot of changes," you know, but you're only saying, "Hey, let's change one thing right now." Like, I'm curious how you approach that conversation.


Wesleyne: I had a client, we did their year-end wrap-up, and I said, "Okay, so based on where we are right now, we can grow in one of three ways. We can grow by existing clients, getting more business from our existing people. We can grow by acquisition or we can go get new people." I said, "Which one do you want?" He was like, "All of them." I said, "I know you want all three. Don't we all? Which one do you want first?" And that's what I usually tell them.


I'm like, "We can do them all, but we can't do them all well. So we have to be focused and we have to try and we have to iterate for at least three, four, five, six months depending on what the strategy is so that we can see what comes out on the other side."


Kyle: Very cool. Very cool. Yeah, it's interesting getting people to kind of get out of their way, their own way a little bit, wanting to do too much.


Cool. So it's obviously a big shift going from science to sales. I'm curious when you realized that this was your calling, right, and not just kind of a job or not, I want to sell science stuff. I want to be a salesperson. What kind of triggered that for you?


Wesleyne: So as a chemist, I would get all these broken parts, right? Like, so one time I got a cooler and there were cracks in the bottom of the cooler and the salesperson said, "Okay, figure out why is this cracking? It should not be cracking."

So I got to figure out that, oh, it's cracking because when you put this kind of weight in it at this temperature, the plastic that we're using, it's not rated for that. So in order to get to that understanding or figure out what the actual problem was, I would have to go talk to the salespeople.


And so every time they would come back from going to visit their customers, I was in their office with my notepad. I was like, "Who did you see? What happened? What kind of new projects do you have for me?" And I realized I was like, "I want to do that. I don't want to be over here. I want to do what you guys are doing."


So when I had that brain switch, that shift in my mind that I realized I wanted to be out in the field, I stepped into my first sales job and I was selling the instruments that I used to use in the lab. So it was a very nice, easy transition. I knew what to use them for. I knew how to speak the language and that's kind of how I built my sales career. I worked a lot in capital equipment. Then I worked in specialty chemicals. So I worked in that arena.


But when I stepped into my own business, I went completely opposite. So I started my business and I was actually still working full-time. So I didn't want to tap into any of my existing network. I was like, "Nobody can know what I'm doing. I just want to see if this works."


So my very first client was an ice cream shop and I worked with them and I helped them build their sales strategy and their launch plan and all their bits and pieces. So that's kind of like my trajectory of how I started and how I moved to my business.


Kyle: Very cool. Very cool. So you mentioned a mindset switch there which is the core of what you do. It's your framework. I know you have this BELIEF framework.

Before we jump into that, I'm curious as to what that specific mindset switch was for you when you decided to go out on your own, to go from selling what you know to things that you don't know. Was there a different, like another mindset switch you had to make there?


Wesleyne: Yeah. So my mindset switch was sitting in a board meeting and presenting everything that my team had done for the past year and what our plans were for the next year. And at this point, it was October in the year. And I had been on, I think I spent 75 nights in hotels that year.


I had been on more flights than I could even count or imagine. I remember being, it was Halloween, and I was in Norway in the snow while my kids were at home trick-or-treating. Like these are vivid memories I have.


And so in that board meeting, I sat down after the presentation and everybody in the board, they looked at me and they were like, "That's it. That's all you've done?" I was like, "Wait, what? Are you serious?"


And so in that board meeting, in that moment, I said, "Oh, I'm done with this. I'm not giving you guys 150% of anything anymore. I'm going to take that 50% and I'm going to start my own business, see what I can do with it. I'll still give you 100% but I'm not giving you any extra."


That was the mindset shift I had. So my mindset shift was I'm doing all of this and at the end of the day, I didn't feel appreciated. I didn't feel like my work was valued. So I decided I was going to bet on myself.


Kyle: Good for you. That's a tough switch to make. But, you know, I think it's also easy to stay in that comfort zone and just kind of do what you got to do to cash the checks and everything, but you had your priorities straight. You figured it out. You made the leap. Seems like it's working out for you.


Wesleyne: I did. I did. And it was not easy, I would say, because I stepped out and I did the part-time thing for probably about nine months or so. Then I stepped out fully. Then this little thing called COVID happened.


Kyle: It's a tiny little thing. Tiny little thing.


Wesleyne: My first full year in business. 2020 was my first full year in business on my own.


Kyle: Oh my God.


Wesleyne: Months into the year. Just the rug got yanked out from under me. And I lost half of my clients and everybody in the pipeline like within three weeks. So it was hard. That was a very hard way to start business.


And then a few years after that, I went through a divorce. So I tell anyone I've gone through COVID and a divorce and I'm still standing, I'm here forever because I have built some resilience.


Kyle: Yeah, you've been sharpened. Ready to take down everything. I like it. I like it.

Awesome. So I know the core of what you do or talk about is the BELIEF framework. And I believe, what is it, next month you have a book coming out too, right? Talks about that. Congrats. You excited about that?


Wesleyne: I am so excited about it. I'm so excited.


Kyle: Are we just in like distribution mode now? It's all finished and everything?


Wesleyne: Yeah, so we're in the pre-launch period. The book is going to be released February 10th. So yeah, I am in pre-launch. The book is available for pre-order. So yeah, it's exciting.


Kyle: Very cool. Well, if you can give everybody a taste, what can they expect from that book and/or what is this BELIEF system that you use to help grow your clients? Transform your clients. Transform. I love that.


Wesleyne: So the name of the book is The Sales Reset. And one of the things that I found, the gaps that there is in the sales industry as well as what people call the motivational industry is you have books that inspire you and get you excited and then you have books that give you sales methodology.


And so in The Sales Reset, we combine both of those. So we combine the mindset skills that you need as well as the actual tactical skills you need to execute in order to become a top-tier salesperson that's hitting your numbers month after month.


And so, in the book, I introduce what I call a BELIEF selling framework. And the BELIEF framework is a way that we as humans have to learn things. So first we have to unlearn the bad before we relearn the good. And then we can't just do it one time. We have to continue to practice, continue to practice. And finally, we know our cycle of learning is complete when we're able to teach it to somebody else.


So the BELIEF selling framework is throughout the book. And you also learn how to handle objections and how to have really good discovery calls and how to prospect. So it's a 200-page book that's packed with lots of information along those lines.


Kyle: Very cool. So for anybody who is listening or watching, BELIEF is actually an acronym.


From my notes here. I don't have this memorized. I got my notes.

Break Barriers, Embrace Growth, Learn Skills, Implement Boldly, Execute Consistently, and Fuel Others. So that's what you're talking about with being able to, you know, speak it to other people and have them learn is a very interesting position to be thinking about.


I'm curious, do you have one that you think kind of, like if you don't have one of those, everything else falls apart? Is there one that's more of a priority or anything like that? I don't want to de-prioritize any of the others, but is there one that kind of stands out the most to you?


Wesleyne: Yeah, it's the Break Barriers. It's because one of the things is we are our own worst enemy. And so what, we lose the battle in our mind sometimes before we even try. We lose the battle in our mind sometimes after we've been knocked down over and over and over again.


So I mentioned my going through a divorce. So one of the things that was very difficult is it was this mental and emotional spaghetti that I was going through on a daily basis and I could not prospect. I just couldn't get out of my brain enough to do it.


So I maintained my existing clients during that period until I got to the place where I could do it. And that's a very big example. But it could be something like you've had a really, really bad quarter and you're at the bottom of the leaderboard. And so you don't believe in yourself anymore and you're beating yourself up.


And so until you identify the self-limiting belief, the thing that you're saying, whatever is holding you back, you can't really move on to anything else.


You teach lead generation and nurturing and how to close deals, right? And so if I don't think that I, if I don't feel confident enough in myself picking up the phone and cold calling somebody, I will never do it.


You can teach somebody how to say the perfect thing. They can have the perfect script. They can have everything perfectly, but if they don't believe in themselves, if they don't unlearn what has held them back in the past, nothing else will work.


Kyle: This resonates so much, I think with a lot of people that are in sales, but myself.


You know, you've been great about being vulnerable. I'll let you know. Early in 2025, my father unexpectedly passed. So that was kind of a world-rocking moment for me. And to your point, the idea of prospecting and getting out in front of people and confidently being like, I know what I'm doing was very difficult to get there. And it took probably about six months for me to get into a spot to be able to do that. So, and there's still ups and downs, of course, you know, so that resonates very, very well with me.


You got to be able to kind of get out of your own way, know that you know what you're talking about and, yeah, just get out there, keep doing it.


Wesleyne: Yeah. And I think the thing that you mentioned, grief, it hits us in lots of different areas of our life and we don't always realize it.


So when you lose someone, you're like, I'm grieving that person. I'm grieving the loss of my parent, right? You grieve the loss of your parent, but you're also grieving the loss of the times that you aren't going to be able to spend with him anymore. You're grieving the loss of the future things that are going to happen that he's not going to be able to be there.


And so when we think about something just as like grief, losing a person, and you think about all the little tiny things that come with that, it can pop up at any moment. You could see somebody out on the street walking with their dad. You can see a little boy walking his dog with his dad and it could remind you of you being a little boy walking with your dad, right? And it can just hit you and then you have to go back to the office and you know you have to make 20 more calls before the end of the day.


If you don't stop and identify this is the thing that I'm dealing with right now, let me use the tools, let me figure out how to work through this, let me give myself a little bit of grace and say I'm going to leave that alone and work on it tomorrow, then you can't push through.


And so in my book I talk about like you have to really recognize those things and you have to come in front of them. And once you figure out those bits and pieces, the things that are holding you back, then you can step into the growth mindset that everybody talks about and learning new things. But if we don't do step one, we can't move forward.


Kyle: So it's interesting. I think a huge problem that I bet a lot of people will go through is the identification of that, you know, something like the loss of a parent or divorce I feel like is an obvious thing, right? We know that we're kind of going through that and that's what's causing some issues. Not everybody has again that obvious situation.


How do you help people? Is there an exercise or anything like that that you would go through to help people be like, "Okay, this is the source of my blockage"? What does that look like?


Wesleyne: So, the first thing that I do is because oftentimes when we're blocked, if you will, we're avoiding something. So the first thing that we have to do is we have to identify what are we avoiding. And it's usually the thing we put off to the end of the day, end of the week, end of the month. Whatever you're avoiding.

It could be a conversation with someone. It could be doing whatever. So first identify what you're avoiding. Then you have to really have some time and you have to be honest with yourself and ask yourself why am I avoiding this.


Okay, why am I, I know that I need to call this customer. We'll use in a business sense. I know I need to call this customer but I keep putting it off till the end of the day. So you ask yourself, well, why am I avoiding this customer? It's not about them. I like this customer.


Then you might sit and you think, and I'm a big proponent of journaling. There's a whole companion guide for the book that had lots of journaling prompts and things like that, but I'm a big proponent of getting pen and paper and writing it out.


Okay. Well, the last time there was a customer that was like this, and I called them after we finished doing their work, they told me that they weren't going to renew, and I really don't want to lose another customer right now. So instead of calling them, I'm just going to avoid them and hopefully it'll go away, right?


Kyle: That's how problems always get fixed, right?


Wesleyne: That's what happens, right? I'll just ignore it.


But we have to identify the root cause. And a lot of times it takes practice and it takes work to really lean into where is this coming from? Why am I avoiding this? Why does this bring me anxiety? Why do I not like doing this?


And once you identify the reason why you're avoiding or you're not doing or whatever that is, then you're like, okay, so I understand the reason why this is happening. Now I must come up with a plan to work through it. And the plan could be, I'm not going to wait until the end of the day when I'm exhausted. I'm going to do it first thing in the morning when my brain is more active.


Or maybe I'm not the best person to deal with this customer. I need to hand this off to a colleague, right? It's okay to ask for help.


But the thing is you identify what that challenge is. What is the thing? Then you say, okay, where is this stemming from? When did this happen before that made me feel uncomfortable? And then finally, it's the action plan to move forward.


Kyle: Very cool. Very cool.


I'm curious. I'm putting myself in your shoes and having conversations with potential clients. And one thing that I thought about is, you know, I think as a society, we've gotten better at welcoming and/or understanding mental health and just again like these barriers. But I have to assume that not everybody is like that.


And I'm curious if you've had a conversation where it's like, "Our sales are dropping, our team isn't doing well, and you're coming in here talking to me about mental health," you know what I'm saying, or blockages. Like I'm curious if you've had situations like that, and how you go about trying to get them to think about this differently.


Wesleyne: So, you know, I think the key is with any kind of sales conversation is you meet the person where they are. So, if somebody is coming to me and they're like, "Man, we're just, we're so off of our budget and we're in June. I can't hire to fix this. I can't do anything else to fix this." Then I meet them where they are.


But when I work with organizations, we always do an evaluation of the team. And so I ask them questions such as, "Okay, well, do you understand why your close rates are so low?" "No, they're just not. I don't know. Stuff's just sitting in the CRM."

I'm like, "Okay, so how are they qualifying people? Okay, so have you gone on ride alongs? How much time are your managers spending outside of the office with reps?" The answers to most of those questions are they don't know.


So once I get enough that I don't knows, I'm like, "Okay, well, do you want to find out?" And they're like, "Yeah, I really want to know."


So I actually don't lean on the mental health, the mindset stuff. I speak the language of my customer because my customer doesn't care about that stuff until I make them care.


So when I present the data and I say, "Okay, so what I see in this data is your team is, they are doing some hunting but they're talking to the wrong people and they are really, really taking rejection very hard. So what this means is they're one-trick ponies. They're going to call somebody, says no, they're going on to the next person. They're not pushing hard enough."


And so we have to help uncover why is that happening and help them come up with ways that they can overcome them. So that's how I handle those conversations.


Kyle: Very cool. Interesting.


So I'm curious. This is obviously a little bit of an AI, or not a little bit, it is an AI podcast. We talk about AI and, you know, early on when you first started AI wasn't as prominent.


I'm curious how you've been shifting and trying to introduce it either into your own internal operations or in terms of the BELIEF framework or how you're trying to marriage it with your clients' use of AI and everything. It's obviously disrupting everything.

So I'm curious as to where AI fits into the puzzle here.


Wesleyne: Yes. So, I would say AI is a very interesting topic for in the sales world. And it's interesting because I have two different camps. I have, "I don't use it. I'm scared of it. I don't even log into anything because I don't want them to know who I am."


Then I have the people that use it not very well. So, I'm working with a client right now and there's a person in their sales operations department and they're working on standard operating procedures. And so they sent me the standard operating procedures to review and it had a bunch of emojis and a bunch of asterisks and em dashes.


I said, "What is this?" And the company, it's a very technical company, right? And so this technical company, but in this SOP, there was all this stuff talking about SaaS and how you close things. I'm like, "You're not doing it. What are you doing here?"


So I give all those examples to say, and I try to say this delicately because it's a hot button for a lot of people, I try to teach people how to humanize AI.


And so when I talk about humanizing AI, I'm like the more you feed it, the more it learns your voice. The more it understands how to write like you and the things that you under… like you want it to understand who you are, how you write, like it should know you.


Kyle: Are you incorporating this in your training actively today with some of your new clients, saying, you know, at this part of the sales process, pull up ChatGPT and, you know, use this prompt? Or, you know, use, is it Gamma that does the pitches? I forget. You know, there's tools out there that will make decks for you and stuff.


I'm curious if you have this kind of built into, "This is a perfect time to be using it now."



Wesleyne: Yeah. So, in our 2026, we're actually rolling out some AI learnings to be incorporated into our sales training. So, I do what I call a sales sprint. So, it's three hours over three days, and we do it either virtually or in person.


So, I'm actually rolling it out in 2026. And for me, I needed to feel comfortable enough with it to teach it. So 2025 was my year of touch and go and tried this and tried that and I don't like this.


And people were like, "Wow, you're using AI and like, how do you do that?" I'm like, "Okay, so now I'm ready."


When they start asking me for advice, I'm like, "Now I'm ready." And so I think really for salespeople, there are so many key ways that you can use AI. And I think there are also ways that you probably shouldn't be using it.


So my goal is to teach them best practices for how to use it and when to use it and not to overuse it or abuse it.


Kyle: Can't become over-reliant on it, for sure. It'll take away, you know, the human skill set, if you will.


How did you go about teaching yourself or learning it? Did you take courses or you're just like, "Let me just dive in headfirst and see what I break and see what turns out well"? Like, how did you start using it?


Wesleyne: So I would say I probably about a year ago attended a… so I'm a part of an organization. It's called Women's Sales Pros. So there are people who own, women that own sales businesses, speakers, trainers, coaches from all across the world. And we get together once a year and we actually teach each other the things that we're doing in our business.


And so there were a lot of sessions about AI and I was like, "I need to learn to leverage this. Like I need to get better at this." Before I was one of those, "I don't know what to do with this" kind of people. And so I just dove headfirst into it.

I don't think I took any official courses or anything. There was an OpenAI Jam here in Houston a couple months ago and I went to that. But what I found was I was very advanced because I was like, "Okay, my goal is I want to learn how to make my own custom GPT." They're like, "What?" I was like, "Yeah, that's all I want to learn." They're like, "What? That's all you need to learn?" And I was like, "I know how to do all this other stuff."


So I think I'm probably pretty much self-taught.


Kyle: That's got to be a good feeling, kind of being there and being like, "Oh, I'm ahead of the curve. This is good."


Wesleyne: Yes. Because, you know, you always feel behind when you're living in your own little bubble. You're like, "I don't really know a lot."


Kyle: Or at the very least, it's like, "Oh, I could be or should be doing more," you know, something like that. So yeah, absolutely. I totally get that.


What skills do you think reps today or sales managers need to stay relevant in this AI world now?


Wesleyne: I really think that as I mentioned before, it's the inputs, right? And so I haven't heard as much about prompt engineers and prompt writing lately. I guess the buzz has died, but I really think like prompting is a big thing.


And so that means asking the right questions. So using the right questions, being able to and be specific. If you are a sales rep and you're working in the manufacturing industry and your client is small businesses in southern Ohio, ask a question that specific instead of, "I need to write an email to pitch my clients," right?


So being specific about who you are and who you're serving and what you specifically need. And what I found is like you can push AI, but you can actually push it too much because you can make it give you the answers that you want, right? If you say, "No, no, no, no, no," it's like, "Okay, well, whatever you want."

So then it's not really artificial intelligence. It's just doing what you want it to do. So I think that there's a big balance of learning how to prompt it and just being satisfied with what it gives you.


Kyle: Yeah, I 100% agree. I've seen over the last, let's call it six months, people either building into their custom GPT or into their prompt saying like, "Don't agree with me," you know, or, you know, "You're not here to be a yes man. I need you to give me the best answer possible based on this."


And I've changed my prompts and I definitely get a different style of response at least. I find it very interesting kind of putting that kind of like, you know, "You are this type of person, this is the goal." It's interesting to see it all come out.


Wesleyne: Yeah. And I think that you like you need to, I want to say be mean, but like, "No, that's not okay." Anytime it gives me an em dash, I'm like, "You know I hate these."


Kyle: Yeah, yeah. "Why do you keep giving me these things?"

Awesome. Very cool. Very cool.


So I'm curious. So you're seven years into this journey as Chief Transformation Officer. You've learned a lot. I'm curious if there's something that you would do differently knowing what you know now.


Wesleyne: Oh, that's a good one. What would I do differently?


I was going to say take more risk, but I was actually pretty risky. I think that I would be less apprehensive to hire people when I first saw the need.


So I now, and this is still, I would say, a work in progress, right? Like I always feel like I need to have that person's salary saved, stacked before I hire them because there's so many horror stories, right? You hire somebody, then you have to take out lines of credit or a loan to pay them.


But I think for me, one of the things that I learned too late was I would hire when we ramped up in work and then we would be behind because I'm teaching a new person, onboarding new clients, rolling out a new product, and it's a lot.

So I would say hire before you feel like you need to hire and take a little bit of risk to know that if you see the pipeline or you see the business coming or you see this new product rollout, like that person is going to have more than enough to do when the time is right.


Kyle: Very cool. Yeah, that's smart. I think that's a tough leap to make, especially that first hire, right? Because not only is there a financial risk to it, it's you're just giving away part of your baby, right? And you're trusting other people to do the same quality of work that you have, you know, given your clients and they expect and everything. So I get it. I get it. It's tough.


Wesleyne: It is. And I think that even as I was doing some reflection this past year, like I used to say, "Oh, I know how to do everything in my business, but I don't know how to do it well." And I would say at this point I don't really know how to do everything in my business, which is good because I've hired people that know how to do things that I don't have to do. I don't have to watch over them. I don't have to be responsible for.


And even now, I'm able to take like I can take good time, like disconnect from my business. And I come back and I'm like, "Guys, I need to take more time off. Every time I come back, it's better than when I left." Like this is great. I love this.


Kyle: That's incredible. That's a good feeling. That's great.

So I want to ask, I apologize, I'm bouncing around a little bit here, but I want to ask the kind of the same question there about learnings and things you would do different but regarding the book.


I think, you know, writing a book is obviously another huge deviation, right? You obviously know how to sell this, but to put it down into a book, something that people can buy and digest.


So I'm curious if there's anything, maybe there's a second book coming, or if you could kind of redo it, what would you change?


Wesleyne: I think that I would be more realistic with my expectations. Now I know better and so I understand.


So on December 26, 2024, I wrote the first draft of the book in five days. I literally sat down and I wrote in five days. And then I did my self-edits and I had the second draft ready to go to editing by the middle of March. So I did my part very, very quickly.


And so because I'm fast, I'm like, this is going to be quick. But it took six months in editing and another three months, I think, in formatting and getting things ready. So, and I thought my book would have been out by now, right?


But I now understand if you want to have a really good book, you need to slow down a little bit because that editing process is actually the most important part because they're professional editors. They know what things need to look like. And then every round of edits, I felt like I was having another child because you're going back and rewriting the things that you're like, "But this was beautiful. Why do I have to change it?"


So editing is much more difficult than writing. At least it was for me. And I would say like realistic expectations.


Kyle: Are you somebody that takes criticism well, as people kind of pull it apart and say, "Hey, you need to be doing this differently"? Because clearly you have a vision, right, but them saying that maybe not necessarily, "This is wrong," but, "This needs to be changed." I'm curious how you handle that.


Wesleyne: So I take feedback very well and I took the, I think it was probably like the… because I had five different editors or five different sets of eyes. And so the first round it was fine. It was really the second one because he was like the, I don't know what you call the story development person. So it was like, "This is too long. This is too short. Add more of this, add more…" I'm like, "I don't know what to do."

For me, I was just like, "I don't know what to do." So we went back and forth and I'm like, "Take out, but then the whole story, the essence of the story is gone," or, "What more do you want me to add here?"


So that was the hardest part for me. It was kind of like getting out of my own little bubble in my head to really understand where he was trying to take me.


Kyle: Fair enough. Fair enough. That's, I mean, it's, they have a vision too, right? And to your point, they're experts, so, yeah, you got to be able to kind of meet each other in the middle there. Interesting stuff.


Cool. So I have two kind of final questions that I wanted to ask about sales, jumping again. I'm sorry I'm kind of all over the place here, but I want to ask the kind of the same question there about learnings and things you would do different but regarding the book.


We talked a lot about your background and your approach. Two higher-level questions.


I'm curious if there's one thing about just the higher-level sales industry that you would like to kind of reset, whether that be process or technology or anything like that. What would you try to like get rid of?


Wesleyne: Oh man, that's a good one.


I really feel like it is the way that we train people, that we deliver information. Because there's so much training out there. So the sales industry, it's not regulated, right? They're just now starting to have bachelor's programs where you can get a degree in sales, but this is new within the past five or 10 years.

So it's not standardized. It is a very non-standard industry. And so everybody has their own method and everybody has their own thing. But I think one of the things that hurts the sales training industry the most is the sheer amount of information we try to give to people at one time and have them implement.


It's why I do sales sprints and I actually have a client flying their whole international team to Houston and they're going to be here for four days. I told him I do not do more than three hours of training at a time. He was like, "That's fine. I like that they can take the afternoon and they can go do whatever they want to do." So we train in the morning; they do what they want in the afternoon.

But I do that because the human brain cannot take in that much new information at one time. Eight hours in a room, it's gone.


So that is one of the things that I would say for my industry is the way that we deliver training.


Kyle: I like that. I like that. I mean, you're 100% right. I just think about, you know, the days back in my master's being even just for like a four-hour lecture or something like that is brutal. You're exhausted afterwards. Your brain is just gone.


Wesleyne: Yeah.


Kyle: Yeah.

Cool. So in terms of kind of the other end of the coin from the sales industry, what is giving you hope and excitement and passion about the direction that it's going right now?


Wesleyne: I think that the collaborative nature of the industry is one thing that gives me hope. There are a lot of people that are working together. So even just for like my book launch, I reached out to a lot of what people would consider my competitors to help them launch the book. And they were all, not all of them, but many of them were willing to, "Yeah, sure, I'll promote your book," whether they've written books or they haven't. So the collaborative nature of how we work together.


And I like to say there's so much cake here. Everybody can have their own slice. Like we don't need to fight for crumbs, right? Like we don't all do the same thing. We do similar things in different ways and every client has a type of method that they really lean on.


Kyle: Do you have a sales personality, influencer, whatever you want to call it, that inspires you or you like to follow?


Wesleyne: Oh, I follow so many. So I think I probably won't say. I won't give a name.


Kyle: Fair enough. Fair enough. I mean, I won't give a name.

To your point, there is a lot out there.


Wesleyne: Yes.


Kyle: Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. That's great.

Okay, so if you're ready, we're going to jump into the rapid fire section. We got five quick ones for you.


Wesleyne: Let's go.


Kyle: All right. I ask everybody this. I find it interesting to see what their answer is. If you could snap your finger and have one fully automated process just built into your day-to-day, what would it be?


Wesleyne: Email cleanup. Let's get that inbox down to zero.


Kyle: Yes.


Wesleyne: Every day.


Kyle: I feel you. Respond like respond to everything, everybody automatically for me and clean it up. I feel it. I feel it. Yep.


All right. Number two. What is the favorite, your favorite sales pitch that you've done in your career?


Wesleyne: My God, goodness gracious.


"I guess if you could do it yourself, then we wouldn't be talking," right?

That's, I don't know. That's the first thing that came to my brain. Because a lot of times people will push back and I'm like, "Well, if you could do it yourself, I wouldn't be here. So obviously you need some help. So let's work on this," I guess.


Kyle: Hey, sometimes being blunt like that makes them be like, "Ah, damn, you're right."


Wesleyne: It does make them say, "Oh, I guess you're right."


Kyle: Yeah, exactly.



All right. Number three. You, as we've talked about, you're an author. If you were to write an autobiography, what would it be titled?


Wesleyne: Gritty and Graceful.


Kyle: Gritty and Graceful. I like it. I like it.

All right. Number four. What is the nerdiest non-work-related thing about you?


Wesleyne: I talked a lot about my book, but I think I will say, and this is probably a longer answer, but when I was a little girl, every time I got an A on my report card or straight As on my report card, my treat was going to Barnes & Noble and getting a new book. So that I would say I love to read. For my birthday this year, everybody said, "What are you doing?" I said, "I'm getting a book and I'm sitting on my couch and I'm reading all day." And that's what I did.


So I think that's the nerdiest thing.


Kyle: There you go. There you go. Hey, there's nothing wrong with being a bookworm. I like it.


All right. And then number five, what is the last picture on your camera roll right now? The last picture you've taken.


Wesleyne: I think it was a selfie of me this morning.


Kyle: There you go. There you go.

Awesome. Awesome.


Well, Wesleyne, we're at the open forum section here. Is there anything that maybe we didn't discuss or touch upon that you're really passionate about, you wanted to share with everybody?


Wesleyne: I think I'll just kind of wrap this with sharing the inspiration for my book was really to give salespeople as well as entrepreneurs a manual that they can use to execute sales at a high level.


As I mentioned, there's a lot of information out there about sales, but what is really missing is how do I do it? Like, how do I actually not just cold call and not just write cold emails, but like how do I build a prospecting plan? How do I handle objections?


And so all of those things are in my book. And as I mentioned before, I kind of mix that with the mindset work. So a lot of times we get stuck and we're like, "I really don't want to have to negotiate this deal." Okay. Use these tools to help you get unstuck in your head before you physically get unstuck. So I think that that is probably the only thing that I would want to wrap with.


Kyle: Very cool. Awesome.


Is it, you said it's available for pre-order. Is it on pre-order on the transformedsales.com site or is it elsewhere too?


Wesleyne: It is on the transformedsales.com. You can go to The Sales Reset and it's right there. It's also available on Barnes & Noble or Amazon. You can grab your copy.


Kyle: Very cool.

Well, Wesleyne, everybody can find you on LinkedIn if they want to reach out. Do you have other socials that you want to plug or share or anything like that or is that the best one?


Wesleyne: LinkedIn is the absolute best one for me.


Kyle: Awesome. And then again, they can see or learn more about your business, Transform Sales, at transformedsales.com.


Wesleyne, thank you so much for joining me on The Brainiac Blueprint. I look forward to seeing more of your content and the book coming out. Congrats. It's going to be so exciting.


If you don't mind, look at the camera and say, "Stay brilliant, Brainiacs."


Wesleyne: Stay brilliant, Brainiacs.


Kyle: Awesome. Thank you so much.


Wesleyne: Thank you.


 
 
 

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